


Dinner with Friends

by screamlet



Category: 1776 (1972)
Genre: Banter, Bickering, Established Relationship, Female Friendship, Femslash, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-08-22
Updated: 2010-08-22
Packaged: 2017-10-11 04:53:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,667
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/108615
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/screamlet/pseuds/screamlet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bickering between marrieds.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dinner with Friends

**Author's Note:**

  * For [leupagus](https://archiveofourown.org/users/leupagus/gifts).



> This is all leupagus's fault.

"What a charming bachelor flat -- did you find it yourself?" Abigail asked as she walked around the room.

"Oh. No, I believe -- Franklin, he has a mental catalogue of every available flat in every major colonial city," John replied. He thought for a moment and added, "No doubt he is taking the opportunity in France to expand that talent into the continent."

"It is _so_ funny," Abigail remarked, "How our people have been out of England for more than a century, but we still call it The Continent, as if there were not four others in the world."

"Now what I find amusing is how you call something 'charming' or 'funny' without actually laughing," John replied.

"Say something deserving of my laughter," she said, and John grinned because she couldn't hide her smirk, not with all the coyness and fans and bonnets of the world.

*

"But you're _here_," Tom whined.

"Yes, Tom," she replied.

"That means _no one else exists_ \-- no one else _should be_ here."

"That is so tremendously sweet and attentive of you," Martha said, covering her mouth and really, truly moved, really she was.

"You are," Tom began as he sat up in bed and pulled her away from the window she was about to open, "the only wife --"

"You are so persuasive," she laughed as he mouthed something resembling more praise into the crook of her neck. "But we are still seeing the Adamses for a meal tonight."

"I take it back," Tom said, and threw himself back against the bed and covered his head with a pillow. "You're a terrible wife."

"Then you should have Mr. Franklin invent you a new one," she said, finally giving in and leaning close to where she supposed Tom's ear would be. "I would be happy to offer this initial model for him to base improvements on. He could do some thorough sketching if he so wished..."

He removed the pillow and glared at her, then tossed it to the foot of the bed and clawed at his hair.

"John Adams," he groaned, "I will never escape him."

"Oh Tom," she sighed as she removed his hands from his hair and clasped the hands in her own. "It's 'shall' in the first person."

"I _shall_ never escape you, either."

"If this is your attempt at escape, you will have to do better to be rid of me. I know a good situation when I see one -- intelligent, land owner, very light beatings -- I am _so_ fortunate."

Martha gave her husband her best smile until he groaned and said, "All right, dinner with the Adamseses, but you will not stop me from drinking."

"I wouldn't dare! You are _such_ an affectionate drunk -- I hear such terrible things from other women, of husbands who drink and treat them and the children terribly, but you and your beer are my most treasured friends." She thought for a moment and added, "Together as a set, of course; I wouldn't dream of coming between friends as dear to each other as you and your beer."

"My beer loves me and wouldn't insist on dragging me out of bed for dinner with John Adams," Tom grumbled.

"To be fair, I am not insisting we leave bed right this minute."

"I like you again," Tom replied, his arms snaking around her waist again.

"I am beside myself with joy," Martha said, and she made sure that something in her smile indicated it wasn't _entirely_ a joke.

*

Dinner was at the Jeffersons's, as Tom had managed to rent an entire _house_ for himself, where John took a frugal set of rooms befitting any monk away from his wife.

"Should I be concerned, then," Martha asked Abigail when they came upon the subject, the men arguing over what drinks to serve with dinner, "That Tom has an entire _house_?"

"Oh no, dear, no," Abigail said. "Though I only know _of_ Tom from John's letters --"

"We will cover letters shortly, I assure you," Martha laughed.

"I see now that he has limbs to spare, and needed the extra space to keep them all. Whereas my husband," Abigail sighed, "Clearly… doesn't."

Their husbands stood in the doorway to the dining room, and Abigail and Martha laughed at them.

"Yes?" John asked. "Can you see the wine stain from here, is that it? Someone, and I hesitate to point out the culprit at this moment --"

"Mr. Jefferson," Abigail began.

"Tom, please, we are friends, I hope?" Tom offered.

"Of course, Tom," Abigail said. "You would not be willing to donate some of your height to my husband, would you? Out of curiosity?"

Tom looked down, really looked down, at John, and then glanced at Abigail. "You have seen what he is capable of with the little he was given -- do you dare push that further?"

"Cheap jokes will not remove this stain, Jefferson," John said. "Come, ladies, dinner is served and surely we can mock each other over a meal as well as anywhere else."

"It is my _favorite_ past time," Martha said to Abigail as they linked arms.

"I believe that makes four of us," she laughed.

*

After dinner, the four retreated into the sitting room, Abigail and Martha acquiescing to just a touch of brandy because of the chill.

"Oh, the chill," John remarked. "In Philadelphia. In August."

"The chill, John," Abigail replied.

"The chill," Tom repeated dryly.

"The chill," Martha laughed. "Should we have reading or conversation? When I arrived, I brought Tom his volumes of Mr. Fielding's work, which he had somehow forgotten at home."

"I left them there for you, dear," Tom sighed. "But thank you."

"Well, you can keep them here if you'd like -- Sterne arrived in the post just before I left, and I am saving him for a lonely night."

"A chilly night?" John asked.

"Something like that," Martha replied with a gently arched eyebrow.

John raised his eyebrows and looked at Abigail, who looked quite content with her snifter and listened attentively. He said, "I'm afraid Abigail does not have as much time --"

"Oh, I have the time, John," Abigail interrupted. "But we have a very… conscientious bookseller that John is quite married to," she explained to Martha.

"We were at Harvard together!" John protested.

"Yes, and he was a theology student, not law, like you," Abigail added. Tom rolled his eyes and Martha sighed delicately into her own snifter. "And for the past six months, we have been in a battle of propriety over whether he would be tainting my delicate sensibility by ordering me the final volume of Sterne."

"And I have offered --" John began.

"To write me a letter of _permission_ to this bookseller, which I refuse." Abigail huffed and looked to Martha. "He would like me, a mother of five children and sole proprietor of our little farm, a Horace in the countryside if there ever was one, to obtain a letter of _permission_ from my husband to purchase a _book_? I would rewrite _Tristram Shandy_ singlehandedly before demeaning myself to that."

"May I be so obscene, John, as to provide your wife with the name of my Boston bookseller?" Tom asked. "Who Martha corresponds with on a disconcerting basis, and he never hesitates to send her books that will bring about our moral and social ruin."

"By all means," John said, and Tom excitedly went to one of his six desks for paper and ink. "At this rate, I worry less for the state of your mind, Abigail, than your running mad among the children and burning down the farm."

"Which actually happened," Martha piped in, and she turned around to glance at her husband. "Did you ever meet the Smythes, I suppose they are twenty, twenty-five miles away? The mother went mad and burned their orchard completely."

"I shall write to Mr. Sterne immediately, and advise him of the literally overwhelming demand for his novel -- wait, he's dead," Tom mused. "Well, to his publisher, then. _They_ are immortal, I'm sure of it."

"Tom, away from the desk, we have company," Martha said. "The minute he sits down, he will remember forty other things he meant to take care of earlier -- ever the procrastinator."

"And you, ever the distraction," Tom replied.

"Your wife, not a distraction, thank you," Martha said.

"How young you seem," Abigail said. "I think John and I have been married too long -- bickering with him is _so_ exhausting."

"And more entertaining than actual conversation," John replied. "More brandy, anyone?"

"Me please," Tom called from his desk.

"And us," Abigail said, and then looked to Martha. "I'm apologize, my presumption --"

"Is welcome, particularly when it comes to brandy," Martha laughed. "But I should not have more after this."

"No, indeed, none of us should," John replied. "Doesn't mean we _won't_."

Abigail noted to Martha, like it was a revelation that had just come to her, "I love my husband."

"Adorable," Martha said as she accepted her refilled glass from John.

*

"How fortunate we are," Abigail said another snifter later, leaning on the arm of her chair towards Martha, who leaned in similarly. "Do -- I should explain about my father." She thought for a moment and then said, "Essentially, he was a minister with no religion. And to this day, God keep him, he sends me the work of these 'genuine' ministers, these 'Men of God', who insist that the way of Christ is keeping women ignorant, practically to the point of drooling, they are so feeble-minded, and this is -- what God in His right mind could want _that_ for any creature capable of more?"

"But we are the same!" Martha cried. "I suppose it was more of a necessity in my household -- as I was the eldest of so many children, I had to teach my sisters when tutors were not available --"

"And clearly," Abigail interrupted wryly, "All that was not for _your_ betterment, but to find you such a husband as you have now."

"Oh indeed," Martha said, "It was quite the hardship, all that _reading_, all that _learning_ and traveling and education, but I persevered, knowing such a man waited at the end."

"I think they're mocking you, Jefferson," John informed his companion.

"I am too tall to care," Tom replied.

*

"No, you _must_ stay the night," Martha insisted when John began to clear his throat and examine his pocket watch loudly. "And Abigail, you must stay in my room with me."

Tom tilted his head and glanced at his wife. "Dear, I hate to remind you both of something you know so well, but --"

"I wish to spend the night with my friend Abigail, as she is to leave for Boston so soon, and who knows when we will see each other again," Martha insisted, and then looked to Abigail. "I must braid your hair."

"And then we may discuss the ridiculous gentlemen who came to call and stood morosely in a corner the entire night, avoiding our fathers," Abigail laughed.

The ridiculous gentlemen looked at each other and then looked off to opposite corners.

"And tomorrow --"

"Will be decided tomorrow," John said. "Well, to bed, everyone. Jefferson, I will take your spare bed, as my back troubles me."

"_Now_ his back troubles him," Abigail whispered to Martha, "And this morning --"

"Thank you, dear, good night," John said.

Abigail gave him a glare and a kiss good night, and Martha gave a smile and a kiss to her own husband, and they walked upstairs, still laughing. John finished his drink and walked up after them.

When Tom was left alone in the sitting room, he looked around at its sudden emptiness and wondered how he had been banished to his own couch.

*

Once things had quieted upstairs and he had set up the couch for himself (and he was glad to have foreseen this possibility at some point in the past, having ordered an extra long couch so his feet did not dangle too uncomfortably off the arm), he meandered upstairs quietly to at least wash his face and possibly put away his waistcoat at least.

He heard snoring from the spare bedroom and knew, just _knew_ it was Adams. He glared at the door momentarily and continued to the separate washroom.

The door to his bedroom was slightly ajar and some candlelight still shown into the hallway. He could not help himself and paused outside the door, knowing his own floors well enough to ensure the floorboard would not creak.

There, on the bed, he could see the two women sitting on the guest bed, facing each other, and Abigail's long hair in a thick braid down her back -- except it was quite unfinished, as his wife's was when he interrupted her.

Well. _Interrupted_ her. Interrupted her thoroughly.

The connection was quite easily made for him, of course, because his wife was… interrupting Abigail, Abigail _Adams_, the wife of his friend in his guest bedroom. (Friend? Really? When had that happened? No matter.)

Tom shifted a little, still silent, tilting his head slightly to better see -- Martha's hands on Abigail, one at her hip and the other at her arm, then caressing up to her shoulder, finally to her hair, her eyes quite closed as she rubbed at Abigail's hip and then allowed her hand to travel to the small of Abigail's back, just about where her unbraided hair ended. He could tell they kissed -- _were kissing_, imperfect, ongoing tense -- and had a better view when they simultaneously rose to their knees and Abigail pulled Martha closer, pulling their bodies together.

Once Martha's hand traveled down to Abigail's thigh and began to lift the nightgown she had lent Abigail for the occasion, Tom turned his head and silently entered the guest bedroom, closing the door firmly behind him.

"Jefferson!" a shrill voice hissed. "What on --"

"Be quiet and move over," Tom replied.

There was a pause in the darkness, and then the shifting of sheets and John replying, "Yes, yes, all right, I did wonder at your complacency."

Tom debated on how much to undress, and decided to slide into bed fully clothed in case it was an Adams family tradition to bring some of the boarding school demeanor to this room as well.

"Stop tossing and turning, Jefferson," John said.

"I would if you loosened your grip on these sheets," Tom replied.

"I was here first."

"I own the house!"

"Rent."

"I temporarily own the house!"

"Keep your voice down! Our wives are probably sleeping," and at that, John did loosen his grip on the sheets just enough for Tom to grab some for his own. "Discussing the children and farms and what terrible local play to attend tomorrow."

"Of course," Tom said dryly. "That's exactly what I saw in my bedroom."

"You saw?" John asked, suddenly interested. "I heard whispers and laughter but -- saw nothing."

Tom turned over so he was looking at John's back, and could hear him humming to himself, considering the options with himself. The man apparently needed an entire mental congress to decide _anything_.

And maybe it was the fact of sharing a bed, and what he had seen, and the significant amount of brandy he had had that night, but Tom finally said, "My wife has turned our bedroom into a British schoolboy's dormitory."

"Wh -- Jefferson, you don't mean to say --"

"I think we should join them," Tom added, quite as a shock to himself as it was to John.

Honestly, Tom expected more sputtering and gasping at the indecency of it all, as Franklin earned whenever he mentioned the sordid details of his meetings with certain Acquaintances, but there was surprisingly little huffing or moralizing from John.

"You understand," John began, "That I say this because the chance may never come again?"

"You would be surprised at how little I care about what you say, Mr. Adams."

"Well then," John said. "Shall we?"

"We will."

"Shall in the first person."

"Not when used in a clause of --"

"Shut up."


End file.
